2007-02-27 04:00:00 PDT Sacramento -- Five Western states, including California, announced an agreement Monday to create a regional effort to lower greenhouse gas emissions that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger touted as illustrating "the power of states to lead our nation addressing climate change."

But officials with the governors of the other states -- Arizona, New Mexico, Washington and Oregon -- indicated that they were not close to adopting the same kind of strong global-warming law that California has in place. The states have largely unenforceable goals to reduce greenhouse gases, and with Arizona and New Mexico still considering building the kind of high-polluting power plants that California forbids, it was unclear how much impact the agreement would have.

Unveiled at a meeting of the National Governors Association in Washington, D.C., the agreement calls for creating a regional goal to reduce emissions and for developing a Western market that could allow companies to buy and sell carbon emission credits. Similar markets operating in the European Union and getting started in the Northeast United States allow companies that dramatically lower their emissions to sell credits to other companies.

Schwarzenegger and the four Democratic governors -- Janet Napolitano of Arizona, Chris Gregoire of Washington, Bill Richardson of New Mexico and Ted Kulongoski of Oregon -- characterized the deal as a Western effort to tackle a problem largely ignored by the federal government. A report released this month by an international panel of scientists predicted that the Western United States would be hit hard by global warming, with temperatures rising by as much as 10 degrees and with an increase in droughts and hurricanes.

Schwarzenegger last year signed landmark legislation requiring the state to lower greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020. The state's Air Resources Board has just begun the process of determining which industries will be required to lower emissions and by how much.

Speaking with reporters in Washington, the governor said the regional agreement showed how the state's actions could spur others.

"The idea is not just to clean California, but also to inspire other states and to inspire other countries to go in the same direction," Schwarzenegger said.

Administration officials said the agreement was an answer to criticism from some California business groups that the state's tough emissions law would lead to companies leaving the state for others in the West that lack restrictions.

"This is a huge jump forward from just California going it alone," said Dan Skopec, undersecretary of Schwarzenegger's Environmental Protection Agency.

But it's not clear whether businesses in other states will buy or sell emissions credits if they are not required to lower emissions, and none of the other states has an anti-global warming law similar to California's. The green politics of California -- where polls show widespread support for tackling global warming -- may not translate as easily to other states.

All four governors have signed executive orders that include goals for reducing emissions, but none seems poised to quickly enact regulations with teeth. A spokesman for Kulongoski said Monday that a law requiring reductions in Oregon was likely a few years from enactment.

The states have all made efforts to reduce greenhouse gases in some ways. Washington voters passed an initiative last fall to increase renewable energy, for example, and New Mexico is proposing to create tax credits to help develop alternative fuels.

An environmental advocate in Arizona, Erik Magnuson of the group Environment Arizona, noted that one of his group's top priorities in the state Legislature this year is to enact a law that would stop neighborhood associations from prohibiting homeowners from installing solar power in their homes. California, meanwhile, is using utility ratepayer money to help install solar panels on 1 million homes.

While Schwarzenegger last year signed legislation banning the state's electric utilities from acquiring new megawatts from power plants that burn coal to produce electricity, both Arizona and New Mexico generate much of their power from coal, which is a heavy greenhouse gas contributor. One power plant in Arizona landed last year on a nonpartisan environmental group's list of the 50 worst carbon dioxide emitters in the country.

Both Arizona and New Mexico are considering proposals for new coal-fired power plants.

White applauded the regional agreement because he said it might prod other states to learn from California's efforts to require more energy-efficient appliances and other emissions reduction strategies, and because he predicted that federal requirements are still a long way off.

"But the question is, what have these governors really agreed to?" he said.

Skopec, one of Schwarzenegger's top energy advisers, noted that the agreement was the beginning of a process that won't work unless the other states eventually emulate California.

"Clearly, it will take all five states agreeing to cap emissions and agreeing on what constitutes an emissions reduction," he said.

States that don't would likely drop out of the agreement, he noted.

States of pollution

Here is a breakdown of the per capita production of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, by state, in metric tons.

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